


Castles in the Air

by RedStarryNight



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Original Work, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Bakugou Katsuki is a Good Friend, Behold my Dracula Continuum!, Class 1-A as Family (My Hero Academia), Coffins in strange places, Dracula Is A Misunderstood Hero/Antihero, Dracula is a Dark Lord (which sounds worse than it is), Dracula turns Midoriya Izuku into a vampire, Midoriya Hisashi Being an Asshole, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Have One for All Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Midoriya Izuku is Class 1A's Best Friend/Pet, Midoriya Izuku is a Ray of Sunshine, Midoriya Izuku is the most precious blooddrinker you ever saw, So this sorta makes Izuku Dracula's son, Supportive Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Vampire Exposition, Vampire Midoriya Izuku, Vampires!, Vlad the Impaler comes to town, Yagi Toshinori | All Might is a Dork, Yayorozu Momo is Class Rep, Yes Izuku can Walk in Sunlight, You've seen Dad For One and Dadzawa now meet Dad the Impaler, rip inko
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27215815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedStarryNight/pseuds/RedStarryNight
Summary: Midoriya Izuku arrived at UA approximately one year after his death.He's never been happier.
Relationships: Class 1-A & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Vlad Dracula, Midoriya Izuku & Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Midoriya Izuku/Uraraka Ochako
Comments: 13
Kudos: 101





	Castles in the Air

**Author's Note:**

> Boku no Hero Academia and its characters are the property of Horikoshi Kōhei and assorted publishers and anime studios. This is purely a fan work.  
> Except for Dracula himself, most if not all the vampire characters named in this work are mine and cannot be used without my permission.

**Castles in the Air**

_I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air._

\--Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

_We were silenced by the night._

_But you and I, we’re gonna rise again_

\--Keane

**Midoriya:** Hey guys.  
When you’re all done w/ your rooms can we talk?  
If you have time.  
I know we’re all busy. If you can’t make it it’s ok.  
You know what maybe we should just skip it. We’re all tired and you don’t wantto

**Bakugo:** Your asses in the lounge in five minutes or UA Campus has a new crater.

“What does it say about us,” Hagakure says, apparently looking over the crowded sofa and chairs, “that we’ve known Bakugo for months and still take his threats seriously?”

“I think it says more about Bakugo,” one of Shouji’s mouths says while the other takes a rather dainty bite of a cookie. There’s three plates of them, somehow meticulously stacked and arranged in a manner suggesting imperial company, rather than a group of sweaty teenagers dressed for video games and late night anime. Midoriya is weird, the class has silently agreed long ago.

The teenager in question is quivering against the vast and dark TV set, almost blurring in front of it, offering tea, soda, water, more cookies or crackers, maybe a pizza? He looks over at Bakugo, who slouches grumpily on a dining area chair with his phone and glares in answer. Izuku quails and glances at his classmates, maybe hoping that one of them would be gluttonous enough to take him up on his offer.

The silence is merciless. Tokoyami even rolls his eyes: he never does that.

Iida finishes a machine-like session of nodding and swinging his head—evidently doing a headcount—then turns like a cog and tells Izuku: “Very well, Midoriya, we’re all here. What is the purpose of this meeting?”

Izuku freezes and stares. Not at anyone in particular but just outward, as if he were a hiker who had turned a corner and found a wolf pack strung out and looking in his direction. There’s no point looking at any one wolf, they’re all here for you.

Bakugo looks up from his phone long enough to scowl and give Izuku a very mild kick in the calf. “Start talking.”

Izuku opens a pocket on his cargo shorts and draws out several folded sheets of paper, thick with his tiny but bizarrely neat handwriting. He shuffles them nervously in white hands, clears his throat, begins to speak. “Th-thank you all for coming. T-to b-begin with, the world is older than we know. Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has recorded encounters with beings other than themselves, ranging from…”

 _Oh, God,_ several teenagers think at once, _he’s on a_ ramble.

“…the earliest known legends regarding revenants came from the Levantine region of the Middle East. Here we see—please pass this around, Iida-san—an Assyrian pot depicting…”

Iida studies a print-out of a photograph and faithfully passes it to Kaminari, who takes it with an eyeroll. Trust Izuku to overthink a meeting of teenagers called by group chat.

Eyes are glazing over before Bakugo taps on his phone and looks up. He scowls and kicks Izuku again. “Oi-oi, Deku, the fuck?”

“Kacchan?”

“These fuckers are all falling asleep!”

“We _were_ ,” Todoroki grumbles, cricking his neck.

“The fuck, Deku, they look like they’ve been watching golf.”

Ashido blinks. “What, like on TV? Who watches golf on TV?”

“Yuwai-chan does,” Kouda murmurs.

Everybody looks at him. “Who’s Yuwai-chan?” Mineta asks.

“My pet rabbit,” Kouda says bashfully, “I keep it on so she doesn’t feel lonely.”

Ashido raises her hand. “Midori, could you please get to the point so we can decide on an adequate punishment on Kouda for keeping his bunny from us?”

Kouda and Izuku make identical choking sounds while Bakugo makes a growling sigh. “Fucking Deku’s a fucking vampire, dumbasses,” he informs them with all the grace of a leaping hippo.

The announcement is as expected and welcome as your drunk uncle— _you know the one_ —at your wedding. Izuku looks like he’s ready to make a hole in the wall to get away. Todoroki raises a scarred eyebrow, a sign of tentative contempt. Aoyoma tilts his head, a spark flying from an eye. Ashido giggles and whispers something to Asui—whatever it is, it doesn’t so much as shift an eyelash on Froppy’s face. Iida frowns. “I don’t get it,” he says to Bakugo.

“Haaah?”

“The joke, I don’t get it.”

“Not a joke, four-eyes.”

“Some may well agree with you, in a full critique of your style,” Iida replies. “However, no matter the poor delivery, it is clear that your statement was meant to be in jest. Consider, for instance, the subject and his context,” Iida gestures at Izuku, whose eyes are big and throat whimpering. “Although Midoriya ranks near the top of our class and has proven to be a formidable hero-in-training—especially considering the very unusual circumstances in which our class has been forced to utilize our skills, he markedly lacks the aggressiveness and malevolence of the legendary creature of which you speak—which he has had ample opportunities to display under our observation—namely, on several exercises and outings, to say nothing of several days’ worth of combined classtime in which he has failed to show a single characteristic of the aforementioned cryptid.”

Almost as one, 1A turns to look at Midoriya Izuku, to glean some confirmation of Iida’s long-winded rationality and a refutation of Bakugo’s brief nonsense. They take in the wild brush of hair, the green eyes, the freckles, the sharp-cut nails, the slightly pointed ears, the nervous smile that tries to close over blindingly white teeth…

After a moment, Jirou says: “He _is_ kinda pale.”

“Yeah, but what does skin color mean anymore?” asks Hagakure.

Dark Shadow slithers out to pick through cookies and Tokoyami sits serenely through it all, arms crossed and eyes closed. “When darkness covers all, what lies beneath the skin finally shows,” he says.

“Yeeeeeeah,” Bakugo drawls, “then there’s this.” His foot suddenly lashes out again, , sending Izuku stumbling towards their classmates with spinning arms, causing Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, and Iida to stand up, anger in their eyes. “That was cruel, Bakugo-kun,” Uraraka says, beating the other two’s threats of detention or further reporting to authorities.

Bakugo rolls his eyes. “Look at the windows, dipshits.”

It’s such an odd directive, delivered so dismissively and so soon after his casual assault that the class blinks and looks to the windows on either side of the corner in which the common room’s television is mounted. Nothing but themselves look back: small, broad, narrow, tanned, pink, half covered, scarred…

Yaoyorozu is the first to grasp it; she sucks in air and turns wide eyes on Izuku, who shakes like a shy, small, wet dog on the doorstep.

“Yaomomo-chan?” Ashido asks, black and gold on the class rep.

“He’s not there,” Yaoyorozu says, in a voice shaken by the world, and points at the window to her right. Ashido blinks, and then the blackness threatens to cover her forehead.

Where there should be Izuku’s T-shirt (red with the word “Epaulette” written out in black) there is only Mineta’s confused face. Where one should see Izuku’s wild hair, one sees Kirishima’s crimson eyes.

Shouji stands, mouths cursing, upending Kaminari. Mineta starts shrieking unfocusedly. Uraraka just stares, head tilted a little, as if she’s examining a squirrel on her ledge. Tokoyami sits, arms crossed, while Dark Shadow tries to save cookies from being trampled underfoot as 1A gets to its collective feet and begin asking, jabbering, yelling, gesturing, muttering, musing all at once.

A high, sharp crack shakes the room and smoke flies from Bakugo’s raised hand. He glares at all of them. “Fuck’s sake, calm down,” he snarls. “It’s just fuckin’ Deku.”

1A stares at him, then turn to Izuku, who has apparently run out of shivers and is now simply standing as still as a pole in a windless land, pupils small and eyes enlarged. He stiffly raises a hand and waves.

(Hello-goodbye-glad to see you again)

Like falling wheat, they lower themselves again. Iida stares at Izuku, ingrained sternness pulling his mouth down. He tilts his head towards the glass, still bereft of Midoriya. “Not an illusion?”

Izuku says nothing, looks at Bakugo. His childhood friend says nothing, just shakes his head minutely. He’s done talking for Izuku. “No,” Izuku sighs. “No, not an illusion, Iida. My reflection’s gone.”

“ _Where’d it go?_ ” Mineta squeals, clambering up Shouji’s back and shuddering behind him like a frightened squirrel.

“I wish I knew.”

Kirishima leans forward. “You’re a vampire? All this time you’ve been a vampire?”  
Izuku cringes. “Yeah,” he whispers miserably. “Sorry…I should have told you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Kirishima asks, eyes sparkling for their utter lack of poor humor.

“This is getting more metal—how long have you been one?” Jirou puts in. “Wait, are you really our age _?_ ”

Kaminari starts. “Hold-up—Midoriya, are you old? Are you really, really old? ‘cause if you are, I don’t think you can stay here.”

“I’m fifteen, Kaminari-san,” Izuku says, sounding a little hurt, “I became a vampire in middle school, about a year before I took the entrance exam.

“Kirishima-san, I just _couldn’t_ ,” he tells the shark-toothed boy, his sharp fingers curling into fists. “Th-there’s rules, _laws_ —I was told— _we_ were told to keep it a secret, we couldn’t just say ‘no.’”

Jirou frowns. “I heard a ‘we’ in there. Bakugo? You the other part of that?”

Bakugo grunts.

“That’s a yes.” Jirou looks around triumphantly. “That is an affirmative grunt, I should know: I got kickass ears.”

Kirishima raises his scarred eyebrow. “So you could tell Bakugo but not us?”

Izuku’s eyes skip around and he grips his shirt, threatening to shred it with his nails. “I—Kacchan is different, he was there. _And_ he promised not to say anything; right, Kacchan?”

“My lips are sealed, dipshit,” Bakugo mutters distractedly as he taps on his phone.

“So, uh, yeah,” Izuku mumbles, turning back to his dormmates, “there you go.”

Satou speaks: “So…you drink blood?”

“…yeah.”

“Human blood?”

Izuku seems to grow smaller beneath several sudden intetested gazes. “Um…well—you see…” he mutters in the pitch of a frightened mouse, “you, um, see, it’s not, uhh, a s-simple thing? I-I m-mean, f-f-fffffrom wh-what I-I unnnnders-t-tand, y-you c-can—“

Satou holds up a hand. “You know what? Can I rephrase that?”

Izuku’s eyes tear up and he nods furiously.

(Satou is very kind.)

“Okay,” Satou says gently. “What do you eat, as a vampire?”

Izuku takes the opportunity to draw breath—an eerily long one, in fact. “W-well, I do drink…b-blood— _it-it doesn’t have to be human, though_ ,” he almost screams the last part, throwing up his pale hands to ward off an invisible mob, green eyes darting wildly about. “I-it’s m-mostly blood f-from farms and s-slaughterhouses. A-any m-mammal works, r-really.”

Kouda squeaks at that and glances worriedly upstairs. Jirou frowns at him. “I think the bunny is safe, Kouda,” she says with no little sarcasm.

“He ate already,” Bakugo says to his little screen. “Thank Christ he doesn’t throw up anymore out of nerves, we’d never get that shit out.”

“Are you speaking from experience there, Bakugo?” Sero asks.

“Oh, if this little asshole barfed up on any of _my_ shit, I’d fucking kick out his fangs and make him suck up his vomit,” Bakugo snarls, then glares at Izuku. “That’s the line, fucking Deku; _remember it_.”

“Okay, Kacchan,” Deku says meekly.

The room is silent.

“Dude,” Kaminari says, “You sure you’re a vampire?”

Hagakure raises her hand…most of them think. “Do you sparkle?”

“ _No_ ,” Izuku, Bakugo, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Shouji, Ojiro, Mineta, Aisui, Kaminari, and Kirishima all say in unison, in varying degrees of insult or outrage.

“That has to be hurtful,” Ojiro tells her.

“And ignorant,” Shouji adds.

“Look, No-See, you do that _once_ and only _once_ ,” Bakugo says through his teeth. “Fucking Deku’s got enough shit to deal with without that glitter-emo duckface assbutter hitting him too.”

Hagakure huffs and apparently crosses her arms. “Ask a simple question,” she mutters.

Uraraka stands and Izuku cringes back, fearful eyes staring, waiting. This is the questioner, the speaker he’s dreaded most. She looks at him, honest face set, eyes calm and challenging. “Deku,” she says, “can we see your room?”

The dorm rooms in Heights Alliance are all standard: a closet, a washroom, a small refrigerator, air conditioning, a veranda. Beds and desks are available for the asking, though many of the students have brought their own furniture.

Midoriya’s room is awash in All Might: those colors, that smile, this hairstyle. All Might’s stripes blaze across drapes (heavy, some in the crowd note, able to keep sunlight at bay), his smile sparkles from a carpet and out from posters. On the desk, All Might holds pens, offers tea, bares teeth in readiness to sharpen a pencil. On a near low shelf, All Might presses against books to keep them from toppling while several more of himself pose heroically.

In this sea of very American red and blue and shiny white teeth there are but a few islands of tempered colors: a small plump woman, soft in looks and feeling, looks up and out from his shelves and walls, never far from a younger Izuku, who has lost none of his freckles or the wilderness of hair.

Tokoyami seems very taken with another picture, ensconced within an oval frame and nearly hidden behind an All Might that has apparently landed after an epic jump from the top of Izuku’s bookshelf. A man with a hawkish nose and a thick moustache, his brow hidden beneath a hat ornamented with pearls and lined with fur. He looks off to the side but if one stares long enough, perhaps he will take notice, turn to you, smile with his sharp teeth and ask how your evening has been.

Dark Shadow picks up a Silver Age All Might and runs an ethereal claw along the frozen, fluttering cape; Izuku tries not to whimper and Tokoyami gently removes the statue from his Quirk’s hands to replace it.

“A fanboy’s room,” Uraraka cheerfully pronounces. And it really is.

Kaminari looks around. “Where’s the coffin? Don’t you guys sleep in a coffin?”

Izuku taps some of his claws together, then steps over and pats his All Might comforter. “Right here.”

Kirishima blinks, walks over. “This? You just sleep on a mattress? I would have thought—“ he pokes at it, pauses, and then probes with all his fingers. “There’s something under here,” he says, thoughtfully.

“That’s the soil,” Izuku explains. Kirishima stares, and the vampire sighs. “I can only rest in my home soil. There’s a bag under there—well, it’s more like a sort of cushion, I guess—that contains a thin layer of earth that I can roll out on a normal bed and I can sleep like Breathers do.”

“Why?” Kirishima leans over, begins pulling up fistfuls of bedclothes. Mineta wanders over to look as well.

“To keep the sheets clean? Which they mostly are, I don’t seem to sweat anymore—“

“Nah, man, why do you need to sleep on dirt?” They’ve found a thin layer of sturdy plastic beneath the sheets, and Kaminari steps forward to look. Jirou, despite a bored expression, leans over to catch a glimpse.

“I’m not sure,” Izuku says, raising his palms—whether to show his helpless ignorance or giving up at keeping a neat bed tonight. “I don’t think anybody is. I tried to go without it once and it was like—like going to bed overtired. I wanted to sleep, my body wanted to sleep, but it just couldn’t. Then I went out and buried myself and slept all day.”

Jirou looks up at that. “Buried?”

“Basically, I dug a shallow grave and buried myself,” he tells her.

Jirou is silent.

“It was actually very refreshing.” He frowns. “Though my pajamas got dirty.”

“Midoriya, you are so metal,” she tells him.

His cheeks color. “Thank you?”

“Do you do that a lot, burying yourself?” Todoroki asks after examining an All Might pez dispenser.

Izuku shrugs. “Sometimes. When this place was under construction, Aizawa-sensei let me come in and bury a coffin in the courtyard.” He points out the window and suddenly Uraraka, Kaminari, Kirishima, Ashido, and Mineta are fighting for space to look out. Tokoyami kneels down and begins tucking in Izuku’s All Might sheets; Asui joins him, working from further down.

“I don’t see it,” Kaminari complains.  
“They did some landscaping over it,” Izuku explains. “But it’s there; I checked after I finished up in here.”

Kaminari pouts for a second, then flashes a brief grin at Izuku: “So: you _do_ sleep in a coffin.”

Izuku reflects the smile. “Sometimes, yeah.” Then he frowns petulantly. “But All Might never licensed his image for one.”

There’s not much else in Izuku’s room (Ashido opens the closet: “Where’s your cape?” On his costume, is the answer) so the students move almost as one body to the next. Tokoyami’s room is dark and has a sword, which Izuku admires in a way that makes some wonder at his claims of being of their generation. “My Father-in-Darkness has a huge collection,” he says as Tokoyami shakes in embarrassed rage, “and most of his get can use them. I’ve been thinking about trying them out.”

“I think that one’s just for show,” Ojiro says looking over the width and heft of the decorated weapon. “Aizawa sensei could probably point you towards some practical equipment.” Then he’s confronted by a mildly outraged Tokoyami who has a certificate of authenticity for the sword in his corner.

“That raises a question…Midoriya-kun,” Yaoyorozu says and Izuku looks up from screwing up the courage to unsheathe just a little swath of the sword. “Does Aizawa-sensei know about this?”

Izuku’s sharp fingers twitch and fall. He doesn’t need to ask what Yaoyorozu’s “this” refers to. “He does.” Words are carefully chosen. “He, ah, knew from the beginning.” He looks up at Yaoyorozu, the class president, eyes begging for her not to ask the next logical question.

She blinks at the watery stare. “And the other teachers?”

Izuku rises, steps out of the shadowy room ahead of a shooing Tokoyami. “Ah, well…Principal Nedzu, Nemuri-sensei, Chiyo-sensei…a lot of them, actually. Oh, All Might-sensei knew too, from the start.”

“So what, we’re the last to know?” Kirishima asks before Yaoyorozu can make a sound.

“There’s rules, Kirishima,” Izuku says with a helpless shrug. “You’re really not, if it means anything.”

Aoyama lives on the other side of Tokoyami and his room is so bright (“Twinkly!” the boy insists) that Izuku noticeably squints and backs out of the room.They skip Mineta’s room, though he leers at them invitingly from his doorway. Izuku seems to sniff the air, then turns around and power walks through the gathering, giving Uraraka a light but firm push towards the stairs.

Kirishima’s room is proudly full of inspirational and exhorting posters and muscle building equipment. Kaminari has built a shrine to random teen boyness, although his collection of sunglasses. Iida cheerfully gestures to a pile of books and a gallery of eyeglasses. When they get to Kouda’s room, the boy is quick to snatch up his rabbit ahead of the stampede of cooing girls and jealous menfolk. He turns around and lets the girls reach forward and pat the sniffling soft ball of white fur while “subtly” keeping an eye on Izuku, who somehow manages to slip in and through the crowd of curious students, look around with big, suspiciously shiny eyes, then somehow slink back out again.

“That’s cheating, Kouda,” Kaminari scolds, finally gaining the zoopath’s attention. Kouda shrugs, his voice crushed by the weight of so many people around him.

Shouji lives like a monk while Sero decorates like he lives on a tiny Pacific island. Todoroki opens the wrong kind of door into a masterpiece of traditional Japanese domesticity. “How’d you do this in _one day_?” Kirishima asks in bewilderment.

Todoroki blinks, like a just-awakened cat. “I worked really hard.” He pauses thoughtfully, then adds: “Really, really hard.”

Satou makes no claims about his room, but his cake is delicious.

Bakugou won’t let anybody in his room. Izuku asks why, and Bakugou snarls that it isn’t anybody’s business.

“It’s a shame,” Izuku says to Uraraka as they make their way to the girls’ side, “Kacchan did a great job with his room.”

(Uraraka later speculates to Ashido and Asui that this means Bakugou’s room might be a clone of Izuku’s and for all their closeness Bakugou seems determined to be as different from Izuku as possible—as though the living death and blood drinking isn’t enough of a gap between the two.)

Jirou’s room looks like she robbed a music store and left behind the cash. Hagakure’s is so fifteen year-old-girly it should be sponsored by _Teen Beat._ Ashido decorates in neon and darkness while Uraraka’s room is filled with the old and the cheap and all well maintained. Aisui’s room is a gallery of soft greens, peaceful landscapes featuring ponds, and her reptilian family staring out with huge eyes from the desk.

“I thought the rooms would be larger,” Yaoyorozu bashfully confesses as they take in her polished bookcase, vanity set, desk, and massive canopy bed. “I probably should have asked more questions before packing.”

“I know how it is,” Izuku says with sympathy. “I had to put my 1:1 scale All Might model into storage.”

Silence falls across the room and hallway. “Your what-now?” Kaminari asks.

“I think that means life size,” Karishima says. He turns to Izuku. “You have a life-size statue of All Might?”

Izuku seems to try to shrink under the stares. He taps two nails together. “I’d just died…I thought I’d treat myself.”

The sound of a whistling bomb echoes through the hall. Bakugou takes out his phone and looks at it.

“Pizza’s fucking here.”

“It’s fine,” Izuku says with a watery smile.

“What?” Uraraka asks, a little loudly.  
He raises his voice to say, again: “It’s fine!”

The fans set up on either side of his stool buzz. The couches and chairs huddled around the television set are swarmed with teenagers, hands full of napkins and hot side-dishes. Mori’s Roman Delights is Bakugou’s favorite source of Italian food—their use of peppers is artistically and aggressively liberal—and they’re ecstatic that Bakugou is still a loyal customer and calling from within the gates of UA for a massive array of pies for his friends. _What a nice boy_ , someone undoubtedly said in the kitchens. _Let’s send along some extra garlic bread._

They opened a box and Izuku jumped up and crawled along the ceiling like a frightened lizard. Sero and Ashido stared as he crossed the ceiling, Bakugou gave something that sounded like a groan, and Mineta reached in and grabbed a stick and began eating.

“What?” Grape Juice looks around while determinedly tearing off another bite. “We eat it, problem solved.”

“Everybody’ll have it on their breath,” Kaminari murmurs looking over at Uraraka and Yaoyorozu as the former coaxes Izuku down beside an open window and the latter generates a pair of fans to and quickly plugs them in, turning about with a gluttonous look and almost throwing herself into the stack of garlic bread. Behind her, Uraraka places fingers on Izuku’s knee, kneels down and looks up into his eyes and smiles.

Shakily, he smiles back.

Asui wraps up a few pieces of bread and some pizza in paper towels, excuses herself “just for a bit” and goes out the door. Aizawa-sensei looks up from his seat on the stoop, a phone rapidly going dark in his hand—Asui barely catches the image of a cat—and disappearing into a pocket.

“Kempei, sensei,” she croaks as she hands over her package.

“Arigato,” he grunts, lifting up a greasy corner with a raised eyebrow. “That’s a lot of garlic bread.”

“They sent a lot,” she says and tilts her head. “Poor Midoriya-chan didn’t like it.”

He grunts wordlessly.

“Sensei, Midoriya-chan told us a secret tonight.”

“Did he?”

“And he said you knew, too.”

He flicks his eyes over to her for a second, then lifts a single stick and takes a massive bite.

“I always wondered about Midoriya-chan’s quirk,” she tells him. “Sometimes it seemed like too much…sometimes it seemed like too little. And there were things about him, too—“

“That scared you?”

Asui turns large eyes on him. “No,” she says. She touches a long finger to her lip. “No, I don’t think so. Midoriya-chan never really scared me.”

Aizawa sucks down the last of his bread stick. “And now?” he asks through a mouthful of bread and crumbs of cheese and spices.

“Now…”

( _“Call me Tsuyu-chan, Midoriya-chan.”_ )

“…Midoriya-chan is Midoriya-chan.”

She bows herself back through the doors, Aizawa looking after her.

Everyone is gathered in the common area. The TV is on and connected to the Internet—Yaoyorozu’s tongue pokes out as she enters her code for some streaming service as Kaminari and Ashido make worshipful genuflections to her. Mineta has crawled up on a couch and his little body is just a little rounder. Bakugou is against an arm rest, eating a slice of pizza with cheese drenched jalapenos. Kirishima is in the kitchen, drinking milk straight out of the carton.

“What happened to Kirishima-chan?” she asks Satou, who hands her a cup of dark, bubbling soda.

“He tried Bakugou’s pizza,” he says, pointing at the pie in question. She can see that besides the jalapenos there are a great deal of ominous looking red and green bits dotting the surface. There’s three slices missing. She leans a little and finds a plate on the floor with a bitten slice half sprawled out of it.

“What a pussy,” Bakugou sneers as he bites into a fat circle of pepper.

The stack of breadsticks is almost gone, disappearing down two of Shouji’s mouths and Tokoyami’s beak. After a moment, Yaoyorozu puts down the remote and grabs the last stick, teeth moving with gusto, determined to break the barrier between them and their classmate.

Todoroki picks up the greasy container and ignites it in his hand, casually walking over to the sink in the kitchen to let the ashes fall. Uraraka has a meat-piled slice in her hand but otherwise hasn’t left Izuku’s side. The vampire has a sharp hand floating in front of his bowed face, a weak shield against the smell. Uraraka whispers something to him and Izuku lifts his head fractionally, his nostrils flare a little. He murmurs something back with a small smile and stands up.

“Hey, welcome back,” Kaminari calls and then loses the small war he’s been holding with Ashido over the remote. Her pink fingers fly over the buttons and soon she’s called up a selection of horror films. Behind her a slice of pizza floats into the air and hovers near Hagakure’s top. The clothes lean forward, shift as a limb seems to extend.

“That one! No, no, below! I’m pointing right at it, Mina-chan!”

“Like that means anything! Oh, oh _yes!_ ”

Slightly off-key music drunkenly stumbles out of the speakers on the set. Izuku trudges towards a couch, eyebrows up in recognition. “I’ve seen this,” he mumbles as somebody on the screen floats out of a coffin, grinning at the camera.

“Bet you have,” Ashido laughs.

“It’s one of the few I’m allowed to watch,” Izuku replies, finding a seat beside Tokoyami. Dark Shadow looms up and settles its head on Izuku’s hair.

A few heads turn. “’Allowed’?” Kirishima glances between pale Izuku and surly Bakugou. “What, your parents don’t let you watch scary movies?”  
“That’s not it,” Izuku tells him. “My father-in-darkness doesn’t like me to watch most vampire movies.”

“Why?”

“Well…most of them are about him.”

Suddenly everybody’s head is turned towards Izuku and he squeaks.

“Midoriya…you keep saying ‘father-in-darkness’.” Yaoyorozu speaks slowly, carefully, as if she’s talking to a frightened fawn. “What is that, precisely?”

“H-he’s the one who made me…” Izuku gestures to himself with a flick of his nails. “We’re not related by blood—a-at least, not when we met,” he mutters.

“So he’s not your biological father.”

“No—Otou-san is working in America. We don’t talk.”

“Ever?”

Izuku looks away. Dark Shadow sprouts arms that go around his shoulders.

Mineta manages to roll forward, ask the question: “Who’s this father-in-darkness?”

Izuku takes a breath: “Prince Vlad Dracula.”

The name hangs in the air, floats teasingly over perches in the minds of these students. It is a foreign name, which in of itself is a surprise; it is a familiar name, which is shocking; it is a name that Izuku _knows_ very well, for his pronunciation is more precise, more fluent. _Drah-cool-yah,_ not _Drak-yu-la._

“…he is... _real_?” Iida asks, and it seems like the question pains him.

Izuku looks over. “As real as I am.”

Iida blanches.

“Count Dracula’s your vampire daddy?” Hagakure asks, in apparent awe.

“I-it’s ‘Prince,’ actually,” Izuku gently corrects her. “I’ve made the same mistake.” He presses his lips together. “I won’t make it twice.”

“What does that mean, Midoriya?” Yaoyorozu is frowning. “Why do you say that?”

He shrugs, runs his sharp fingers against each other. His mouth opens, closes again, and when they open two of his teeth are sharper. Longer. “I c-called him th-that once. He _looked_ at me, c-corrected me.” He blinks. “P-patiently, too. I-it was…embarrassing. L-like burping in front of the emperor. I c-could have d- _died_.” He pauses. Sighs. “Again.”

A frown still cuts across the class president’s face. “He _looked_ at you,” she says, trying to understand, to beckon. “Is that all?”

For a moment, Izuku is silent. On screen the vampires are smiling with their teeth. “It’s enough,” Izuku says. “His eyes…he can do anything with his eyes.” He looks up at Yaoyorozu, notices the set of her face, and shrugs tightly. “Including scolding me. But just that.”

She doesn’t look quite content with that, and Izuku hurries on. “You don’t have to be worried about me, Yaoyorozu-san. He’s the reason I’m here, really.”

“Dracula—the king of vampires—is nice…to you.” It seems up to Kaminari to manifest the class’s bewilderment.

“He is!” Izuku’s sudden brightness is startling. Dark Shadow eyes him warily. “I admit he’s…pretty scary, but he helped me adjust to…this,”—he gestures to himself with a flick of his claws—“and he facilitated my registration. And then he helped Kacchan and me escape from All for One—he was in another country at the time and flew all the way here.”

“What, as a bat?” Kirishima asks.

Izuku shakes his head. “Supersonic business jet. Excuse me but get with the times, Kirishima-kun.” The latter is meant in good fun and Kirishima laughs with everybody.

Todoroki tilts his head. “Why’d he come? Didn’t he trust All Might and the other heroes?”

“I asked him to?” Izuku shrugs, but with a sharp smile. “I have a sort of…telepathic link to him—it’s unique to our Bloodline. I called to him and he came as quickly as he could.”

“Which was pretty goddamn quick, thank God,” Bakugou mutters, glancing at Izuku once before determinedly glaring at a fresh slice of tongue-scalding pizza.

Yaoyorozu looks intrigued and asks: “Do you talk with him often, like that?”

“Well, with the time differences it’s pretty handy,” Izuku tells her. “He checks in for the most part. Actually, much of the time we don’t even speak.”

Now Ashido tilts her head in perplexion. “How’s that?”

“The link is…well, it can be both or either audio and video? He can talk to me or just look out through my eyes see what’s happening around me. He’ll do that every now and then and…” Izuku’s words drop off suddenly, like a skein of yarn falling off a lap. His back straightens and his pupils suddenly take on a dull, red glow within them, like the hot ashes in a dying fireplace. Bakugou lowers his food and straightens up too, staring at Izuku.

“Deku?” Uraraka asks, daring to touch Izuku’s shoulder.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Bakugou breathes.

Kirishima turns to him. “What? What’s happening?”

“I thought we had more time,” Bakugou whispers.  
“Deku? _Deku_.” Uraraka sounds worried, fearful. Her grip on the shoulder tightens, becomes violent as she shakes him. Izuku turns to her, blinks, and then looks at everyone.

“He’s listening,” he tells them. His nails dig into his sweatpants, leaving lines of peeking pale flesh.

“He’s really mad…”


End file.
